It has made rents completely unaffordable. It has also led to convincing efforts to remove people who are protected by local laws so that rents can be increased.
Furthermore, the buildings we're talking about, those that were really subject to speculation, are the ones where rents were moderate and that housed low-income individuals. That meant that, once the units were vacant, rents could be sharply increased. Even in provinces that have rent control, there's no control over rents when a unit is vacant. Quebec is starting to take some interest in the matter, but that's not the case in the other provinces.
So that was a good reason to evict people. Apart from evictions, we've seen a very dynamic buyer's market. Those old properties may have needed repairs; they were also the result of federal programs from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. We still want the private market to build more units today. So we have an excellent acquisition fund for the non-market housing market that would make it possible to purchase those properties. And the private market will benefit a second time.
Why couldn't we simply invest directly in the non-market housing market? That's a phenomenon that I'd like to bring to your attention today.